1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to magnetic recording media and, more particularly, to a high storage capacity magnetic recording medium. The present invention also relates to a method for manufacturing magnetic recording medium.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Nowadays, magnetic recording media are widely used, for example, in various personal computers or working stations. Generally, magnetic recording media can be classified into longitudinal magnetic recording media, perpendicular magnetic recording media and hybrid magnetic recording media.
With the rapid development of information technology, it is critical to fabricate magnetic recording media with very high information bit storage densities. Generally a magnetic storage medium is formed of ferromagnetic particles, when the size of the ferromagnetic particles is reduced the information bit storage density of the magnetic recording media can be increased. However, when the ferromagnetic particles are reduced to a size smaller than the size of a single magnetic domain, the distances between the neighboring ferromagnetic particles are very small, thus exchange couplings between neighboring ferromagnetic particles become significant, and the resulting noise is very large making data writing/reading unsuccessfully. When the ferromagnetic particles have a very small size, the magnetic anisotropy related to the volume of the particles is decreased. This decrease causes poor thermal stability in the magnetic recording medium. Therefore, the magnetic particles that can be used are limited to those above a certain size, and information storage capacity of the magnetic recording media is resultingly limited. Thus the conventional magnetic recording media cannot satisfy needs of high storage capability.
What is needed, therefore, is a magnetic recording medium with high information bit storage density and thermal stability, and a method of manufacturing the same.